Welcome to Friday Fives, Vol. 268
This week we’re pondering font names, heating up the grill on a spicy lawsuit, blinking twice at fake ads, discussing the depths of recommendation, and taking a look at men’s health.
We’re excited to share big news from two of our clients! Sanzo and COVRY, an AAPI-founded eyewear label for low-bridge noses, just dropped a new fruity eyewear collection. We’re also thrilled to hear that Betches was featured in AdWeek for a whopping 40% revenue growth.
If you read our Vol. 266 Friday Fives where we introduced Microsoft’s new font Aptos, you also might remember it was replacing the default font Calibri. Turns out, Aptos was really just a new name for Matteson’s Bierstadt font which has us wondering, how do fonts get their names? Brandon outlines that for many designers, it varies: sometimes the name comes before the design, the team votes on a series of names, or in most cases, the client gets the final say. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, you’ll go through two, three, even 200 names before you find the perfect match.
Last week the Youtube star MrBeast sued Virtual Dining Concepts, the ghost kitchen restaurant firm behind his burger brand MrBeast Burger. Allegedly he wanted out of the business agreement after calling the food “inedible” on a social media rampage to his combined 236.9 million followers. This week the firm is suing back for $100 million dollars claiming he knowingly ruined their reputation and did not fulfill any of his contractual agreements. With so much at steak, it appears there were too many cooks in the kitchen.
With the capabilities of AI and CGI advancing every day, so are the number of fake ads. In a viral Heineken ad that was posted around the release of the Barbie movie, many thought it was a genius move by the Dutch beer company, but it was actually created by one man on his lunch break. Similarly, Maybelline posted viral TikTok videos displaying huge eyelashes attached to London transportation — only it was made with CGI. Whether it’s a clever spin on fake eyelashes or a new way to push the boundaries of marketing, it certainly has our attention.
Our Obsession with Recommendations
Are you on Substack? You should be. Recommendations, as simple as that, date back hundreds of years — from food to cars to politicians and everything in between. This essay, albeit focused on fashion, offers a fascinating think piece on our very human yearning to listen to the “expert,” be that a Vogue or a Leandra Cohen. As the internet gains speed, so do the millions of sites we could be focusing our time and energy on. Hence why curated, informed recommendations are so profitable for the creator (think influencers, Wirecutter, even the author writing this). We are willing to give them money to get exactly what we’ve been searching for. That reminds us, this is the perfect linen shirt.
A new breed of men is surfacing, and they’re calling themselves Huberman Husbands. They’re named after Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford and host of the health podcast “Huberman Lab” (think Athletic Greens and biohacking). This is just the tip of the iceberg for an untapped market of middle-aged men who are starting to care about their health. It’s a positive transformation of a male fitness culture that tells men, “It’s ok to pay attention to your bodily health,” and we’re here for it.
